


Pink and Yellow Roses

by Arynphallia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Light Angst, Reunions, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arynphallia/pseuds/Arynphallia
Summary: The tea set is gently used when it comes into his care.It's chipped and the rose pattern on the sides is worn, much like how he feels most days.But there's something about it that give him hope.He's always liked hope
Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 22
Kudos: 147





	Pink and Yellow Roses

The tea set is gently used when it comes into his care. 

Worn pink and yellow roses decorate all six cups, their saucers, the cream and sugar carriers, and the stout little pot that brings a smile to his face whenever he looks at it. It seems such a merry little thing, sitting on the counter in the galley while he waits for water to boil. A few pieces are chipped, but that's not such a bad thing, he knows what it means to be worn and chipped. 

He's only had the thing for a week but he couldn't bear to part with it. 

He can still see the girl's tear-stained face as she'd pushed the wicker basket into his arms as a thank you. He doesn't accept gifts, not usually, the furthest he went was liberating clothes after a regeneration. But she'd seemed like she needed him to take it, so he had. 

He'd had a momentary spot of fear, dreading that he may have had a child foisted upon him, but thankfully it had just been the happy little tea set. 

The kettle boils, so he pours it into the pot, wondering how long he needs to let his tea steep. The body is still new; he might like his tea weak, for all he knew. And Grace had been no help with the paltry excuses Americans called tea. 

Perhaps he should attempt a strong tea first. Then, he can add milk and sugar if he doesn’t like it black. And if all that still doesn’t satisfy him, he can make another pot of weaker tea. Though liking weak tea seemed highly implausible. He'd never enjoyed weak tea and assumed it was one of those things that never changed. But then again, he didn't go around kissing companions and he'd kissed Grace. So maybe, even now, some big things could change.

While the tea steeps, he picks out his favorite of the nearly identical cups and examines it closely, admiring a small chip on the rim. It's not sharp enough to cut himself on and it gives the whole cup a bit of character. He turns it over to look at the bottom and notes the name stamped there;  _ Bad Wolf China _ . Interesting. 

  
  


***

He drinks his tea from that cup and that pot for the rest of the time he's in that body. 

Even through the war. 

But after, when he wakes up on the floor of the console room, still dizzy and aching from a regeneration that just barely happened, there's no trace of them. So he gets down a plain blue mug and uses bagged tea. It suits him better in this body he muses, when he finally figures himself out. The fine, rose-patterned china would be wrong in these hands. The hands of a killer. 

He tells himself that he's not soft anymore, he's not gentle. His hands are rough with calluses he didn't make and stained with more blood on them than he'll ever be able to wash clean. He wears his wool jumpers and leather jacket like armor, hiding behind what humans would consider a coarse accent, as if that will protect him from his pain. 

It doesn't. 

*

A pink and yellow Rose, like the ones on his favorite teapot, manages to work her way past his roughness and finds what remains of his silly, romantic last self. He waxes poetic about her; muses about all her fine qualities, the slope of her nose and the curve of her cheek like some bloody hero in a Jane Austen novel. He'll never give voice to any of it, pushing it away as romantic nonsense. 

Rose can never know how much he loves her. 

Sometimes it feels like she's got his very soul cupped in her hands. 

He's not sure he wants it back. 

And when she buys him a new mug, patterned with roses, well, he can't resist using it, even if it was a joke gift. 

  
  


***

He breaks the mug when he loses her for the third time, throws it against the wall in a fit of pain and feels only the briefest amount of satisfaction at watching it shatter. 

The shards tumble to the ground and he falls with them, feeling like he's lost her all over again. 

She's gone and now, so is his favorite tea mug.

He doesn't move for a long time. 

When he finally does, he cleans up his mess, regretting what he's done. It'd been one of the few gifts she'd given him and he'd wasted it, broken it like so many of the other things she'd given him.

The writing on what used to be the bottom catches his eye and he turns it so he can read it properly;  _ Bad Wolf China _ .

It reminds him of another tea set that said the same, and he can't help but marvel at how far Bad Wolf seems to have reached. 

He still doesn't get the tea set out. He's not sure he'd be able to stand the sight of roses.

***

The next one, with the bow ties and tweed, he  _ forgets _ . Pushes down every last thought and feeling about his Rose, locks her away where she can't hurt him anymore. 

He takes his tea in a silly white mug that has a ridiculous science pun on the side because it adds to the wacky professor facade this body seems so fond of, and ignores the wicker basket that's appeared in his bedroom. He can't. 

But Rose never took kindly to being ignored or forgotten. 

She pops up at the most inconvenient times, just watching him from his memories. He can hardly stand it, knowing that she'd hate what he's become. She's the only one who knows just how un-Doctor-ly some of the things this face has done are. 

But he's lost everyone who could stop him, or would even bother to try. 

***

He finally brings out his teapot again when he's stuck on earth guarding the vault.

There's so much spare time now, so little to do, his tea consumption is at a record high. Missy doesn't know about it though. Their weekly teas are served in a nice, but generic pot he'd had Nardole pick up at a specialty store. Missy would have complained with anything less. And she probably would have broken his tea set, unwilling to see the sentimental value.

It's the only thing allowed on his desk that reminds him of Rose. 

River is there, because he loved her, even if he never got the change to do so properly, not until right at the end. She helps him remember to do the right thing, and to have fun. He's rather bad at having fun this time round. 

Susan is there, because she reminds him of how this all started, and two school teachers who really put up with his nonsense for far longer than he deserved. 

Rose is not there. Because most days he can't think about her without aching. 

But that teapot and his cup, they're just enough to soothe the raw parts of him, making facing the day that much easier. 

And the name stamped on the bottom gives him the tiniest shred of hope. 

***

She goes back to clear out her office and the vault one day while the fam are visiting their families. The rug Bill got her gets put in her bedroom on the TARDIS, the cup of sonic screwdrivers are thrown in a drawer for backups and emergencies. The photos of River and Susan are tucked away, they hurt too much now. She may have said that she carries the people she loves with her, but the photos hurt. More than they used to. 

The teapot feels a bit too dainty again. This body isn't soft. Isn't delicate. She probably would have grabbed a leather jacket if there'd been one in the shop when Yaz took her shopping. 

She carefully packs it away, wondering if she'll ever get to use it again. There'll be gentle bodies again, she knows that. She may be hurting now, but one thing she knows is that pain is not permanent. She'll be foolish enough to open her hearts up again and someone will slip in. 

And then she'll lose them. But that's a problem for a later date and a later Doctor.

Once everything is safely packed up in boxes, she goes down to the vault, not eager to clear up whatever mess Missy left behind. 

But there, sitting on Missy's piano, is a mug. Patterned with pink and yellow roses. Nearly identical to the one she'd broken so many years ago. But that would be impossible. 

Her hearts thunder wildly in her chest as she stares it down, waiting for it to be an attack, or a trick of some kind. She wouldn't put it past Missy to still be alive somehow. 

When nothing happens she deflates a bit and creeps closer, tentatively picking up the mug. If she didn't know it was impossible, she would say it was the exact same. 

She turns it over in her hands to check the bottom, hoping for the closest thing to a miracle the universe would have ever given her. 

"You're a hard woman to find," a voice calls out, cutting through the tense silence. 

The Doctor whirls, just barely resisting flailing her arms. She clutches the mug to her chest, desperate to keep it from breaking. There's a woman standing in the doorway to the vault. Blonde haired, brown-eyed and one hundred percent impossible. 

Her eyes rake over Rose hungrily, searching for the slightest sign that this wasn't real. Or maybe they were meeting out of order somehow... but no. Rose isn't wearing that blue jacket. Not a hopping Rose then. 

A Zygon copy? No. They'd never be able to maintain the form with the real Rose in a parallel world. 

"Rose?" the Doctor finally manages, still terrified that none of this is real. Her hands are shaking so she shoves the mug back onto the piano, unwilling to let it break. 

Rose's lips curl up into the Doctor's favorite smile. "Hello."

The Doctor is so thankful she put the mug down, she'd have dropped it out of sheer shock by now. Her legs move before she can tell them to. 

It's a much shorter distance this time and there aren't any daleks to stop them, so she actually gets to collide with Rose. Gets to wrap her up as tightly as she can and breathe in the scent of Rose's shampoo. 

Rose takes a shuddering breath and the Doctor thinks she knows exactly how she feels. "Rose," she whispers right into Rose's ear. "You're here."

She laughs, it's breathy and strained, like she's trying not to cry. "Yes, Doctor. I'm here."


End file.
